Hello all! I'm new here and had a few questions regarding some issues I've had with Vue Studio 2016 of late. I've made a model of an airplane in 3DS:

Here's an image rendered from within 3DS. No smoothing issues, and there aren't any issues with the UV mapping or textures.

Here's an image rendered in VUE after importing the plane as .OBJ and applying the same textures:

If you look at the air intake you'll see a jagged blue line. That's where Vue is doing something odd to my model's UV map. It does the same thing at the roots of the horizontal stabilizers and the tip of the probe on the nose of the plane. Here's an image from Vue of the back of the plane:

There are areas at the stabilizer roots that should be camouflage, but aren't because Vue is doing something to the UV mapping.

In the same model I've also had problems with the canopy frame and clear canopy parts rendering in black, or having blobby, black artifacts on them or other parts of the fuselage:

I've contacted E-On's support and Barry working with me right now, which is great. I'm hoping that one of you, who are no doubt more expert than me, might have an idea where the problem lies. This is really frustrating me and has been a roadblock in my work. Thanks in advance. I appreciate any help that anyone might provide.

-John

Unless I'm mistaken there seems to be the same issue with the tip of the starboard wing too. While the first render appears mostly shades of blue, the artifacts in the following renders appear to be the same blue. Could this be a lighting problem? Without any textures at all, what does the model look like?

TheBryster posted at 6:04PM Mon, 08 January 2018 - #4321866

Unless I'm mistaken there seems to be the same issue with the tip of the starboard wing too. While the first render appears mostly shades of blue, the artifacts in the following renders appear to be the same blue. Could this be a lighting problem? Without any textures at all, what does the model look like?

Hey, thanks for responding! Actually the blue part on the end of the starboard wingtip is part of the model that hasn't been textured yet. The blue color is a background I was using in PS while making the preliminary camouflage texture.

The values in the first render looked off likely because I had gamma cranked up too high in 3DS. I just posted it to demonstrate the textures for the model weren't tearing in 3DS, the program in which I created the model.

The artifacts are blue in the second and third renders because that's the blue background for the textures I was using in PS (which help me determine whether I have anything in the texture painting misaligned, or just plain off in the UV map). It's a preliminary texture, but I wanted to see how it would look in Vue and the results were what you saw in the above renders. I have no idea why an entire canopy frame, to which a texture map was applied, would be all black. Nor do I have any idea why there would be black artifacts elsewhere (e.g. the gun port).

Since then I've imported the model piece-by-piece to try to make educated guesses about what was happening. Some pieces (the fuselage, clear canopy glazing, cockpit tub, and exhaust/air brake petals) are imported .OBJ objects. I found that I should not use the slider to increase the mesh density (in the "edit object" field) in any amount as I believe that is what was possibly causing the tearing problem for the fuselage. In using that slider is Vue, I guess, increasing the number of polys in the object (similar to 3DS meshsmooth/turbosmooth)? If so that would, I suppose, explain some of the tearing.

I imported the canopy frame as an .OBJ object and was not at all able to correctly apply my texture to it. However, if that same part was imported as a .3ds object I could apply the texture to it just fine. Same for the horizontal stabilizers. The .OBJ object horizontal stabilizers had to be swapped for .3DS objects for them to look right. Why? I have no idea. Anyway, this is what it looked like in Vue yesterday evening after adjusting sunlight and ambient lighting a bit:

The texture seems to be okay now, but I've no idea why I'd have to import one format over another for the parts to look better or for their textures to appear properly.

If the problem is at the boundary of two objects then there was a recent post in the Poser forum where the issue was caused by overlapping vertices that were not welded. The normals were not being calculated properly. I mention it here as black polygons often indicate the normal has flipped 180 degrees so the backface is being presented to the viewer.

When I export as OBJ from a modeler into Vue, I don't re-calc the polymesh. That will jam up any UV mapping. I never see black in my Vue renders. I must have a version that makes polygons double-sided, so normals are ignored pretty much.

ShawnDriscoll posted at 9:19AM Tue, 09 January 2018 - #4321920

When I export as OBJ from a modeler into Vue, I don't re-calc the polymesh. That will jam up any UV mapping. I never see black in my Vue renders. I must have a version that makes polygons double-sided, so normals are ignored pretty much.

Hi Shawn. I do think having Vue recalculate the mesh was a part of the problem. I didn’t have it do that when I imported the current objects and it seemed to work out okay. Barry unchecked “make double sided” in the “edit object” setting, then re-checked it while he examined it, and the textures appeared to lay out properly. So, it may have been something I was doing incorrectly after a bit of further investigation on my part. All of the normals are facing the right direction with this version as well as the previous time I tried importing the objects. Now I’m thinking, unless there’s a reason to do so, I just won’t have Vue do any re-calc on the polys and take care of any mesh density issues within 3DS. Funny thing is I had none of the same issues with previous object imports from 3DS.

ironsoul posted at 9:29AM Tue, 09 January 2018 - #4321905

If the problem is at the boundary of two objects then there was a recent post in the Poser forum where the issue was caused by overlapping vertices that were not welded. The normals were not being calculated properly. I mention it here as black polygons often indicate the normal has flipped 180 degrees so the backface is being presented to the viewer.

Thanks Ironsoul, that’s a good bit of info to remember. I definitely check on things like that while I’m modeling the object, and all the verts in this model are welded and the normals face properly.

I'm really glad you managed to sort this out. It's a really splendid model! As a child I made every airfix model plane I could get my hands on. This brings back many wonderful memories.

TheBryster posted at 12:44PM Wed, 10 January 2018 - #4322016

I'm really glad you managed to sort this out. It's a really splendid model! As a child I made every airfix model plane I could get my hands on. This brings back many wonderful memories.

Thanks very much! I started making that during June or July of last year. The work got sidetracked by some commissioned work, which is great, but filled all my time. The commissioned work is on hiatus until February, so I’m trying to get as much work as I can on the F-105 now. I’m getting a grip on it in Vue now and hopefully will be able to render it in different scenes with some authentic markings in the near future.